Feb 19, 2016

“Let us be grateful to the people who make us happy; they
are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom.” Marcel Proust

I am so grateful for all that is happening in resistance to
the incredible odds and repression practiced by the elites in power. While some
may get activism or compassion “fatigue” , there are literally millions of
people deciding to leave their apathy behind and put their hands with other
people to work. Our tiny little small part of the world (Palestine now an
apartheid sate called a “Jewish state”) has become a major center of global
activism. This centrality can be due to many factors:

1.Religious centrality to three main religions, one
of which was hijacked for political purposes locally
in the past (Christianity --> Crusaderism), the other
hijacked in the past 150 years and is still strongly hijacked (Judaism -->Zionism)
and the other more recently and in nearby areas beginning to be hijacked
(Islam --> Isis and Wahhabism).

2. Nowhere else on earth is Western government hypocrisy more evident than in
Palestine. While the western leaders speak of democracy and human rights, they
support an apartheid racist “Jewish state” that engaged and engages in racism,
war crimes, crimes against humanity and ethnic cleansing (so far 7 million of
us Palestinians are refugees or displaced people). Thus, this is the Achilles
heel of Western propaganda.

3. The 12 million Palestinians in the world, most refugees and others squeezed
into bantustans have been remarkably peaceful and tolerant and had a long
history of popular resistance for the past 130 years that provided a stellar
example to the world (see my 2012 book “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A
history of hope and empowerment”).

4. Israeli citizens and the global community are increasingly joining hands
with us to demand justice as the only road to peace.

5. More and more people realize that peace in the “Middle East” (Western Asia)
and around the world is dependent on peace for Palestine. Zionism with its
(sometimes dominant, sometimes subservient) twin US imperialism are and have
been most destructive forces in causing global conflict.

But what really gives us optimism daily are the people we interact with.
Students at the universities who see the importance of knowledge (power) and
come to school with enthusiasm even in the face of suppression of their movement.
Farmers that work hard in their fields even as land and water are being taken
from them by the occupiers. Unarmed young demonstrators showing bravery in
challenging the heavily armed Israeli forces (who occasionally murder them).
Thousands of political prisoners and “administrative detainees” who resist the
prisoners (one on hunger strike is close to death). Activists who sometimes
sacrifice comforts to be with us. Organizers of boycott, divestment and
sanctions (BDS) activities around the world who refuse to be silenced by
illegal measures their governments try to impose on them to suppress free
speech. Volunteers at our activities from refugee camp youth centers like
Al-Rowwad to our Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability (http://www.palestinenature.org/about-us/
).

Sometimes small actions make us retain our sanity. Just this past week:
- A small village of Izbet al-Tabib managed to gather 300 demonstrators
protesting the illegal confiscation of land and resources to serve settlers.
-We saved a cattle egret (bird with long legs and beak from the heron group)
which had been shot and with a macerated wing. We did an operation that saved
its life (unfortunately the wing had to be amputated).
-We released a fox that was drowning in a water treatment pool in the Bethlehem
garbage dump site.
- My tourism class did an exercise to help in a local tourism promotion
project.
-We noted several species of butterflies in our botanic garden already and the
flowers of rare orchids and even the Star of Bethlehem
-We had our first class in biodiversity for the new master program in
environmental biology at Birzeit University.
-We received dozens of visitors to our facilities and added to our very large
network of friends (now tens of thousands)
-We submitted two small grant proposals (we hope to start to do major
fundraising soon for our museum, botanical garden, and institute of
biodiversity and sustainability)
-Our aquaponic system is doing great and we expect our first harvest next week
(lettuce)
- We said goodbye to some volunteers and we welcomed others who helped us build
this institution.

We expect to receive more volunteers next week including a professor from
Jordan and an aquaponics researcher from Switzerland and at least 10 students
from Bethlehem University doing their community service. We are so grateful for
all the above and we welcome volunteers and supporters with all backgrounds and
skills. We are guided by love and respect (to ourselves, to others, then to
nature). We are strengthened amid all the suffering (here in Gaza, in Syria, in
Yemen etc) by human connections and by caring for each other.

Feb 14, 2016

I was with two of my students and an International visitor
heading to Birzeit for our first class in biodiversity this semester on
Saturday when we got selected for search at an Israeli “flying
checkpoint”. There are hundreds of fixed checkpoints inside the illegally
occupied West Bank, most are between one Palestinian area and another and not
on the “Green line” but we also have to face the “flying checkpoints” which
literally can be anywhere and anytime. In this case a long line of cars
were held at Hizma. When it was our turn, a young Israeli younger than my
son told me to stop. I said can I pull to the side to let other cars
pass. He said no. There were several of them young recruits dressed
in police uniforms and in army uniforms. In the occupied territories the
two services are indistinguishable and operate as one fascist occupation
force. Another Israeli was nearby so I said why can’t I pull to the side.
He turned over to his commanding officer who nodded his agreement. Then
the officer asked me to pull onto the circle in the middle of the road.
They asked for all our ID cards and handed them to another person who went to
check them via his computer. Then they demanded each of us get out of the
car in turns. My students in the back first, then the international
visitor, then me. Some of the uniformed occupiers pointed their guns at
us while others demanded we empty all our pockets and frisked us.

They searched the car and they flipped through the camera memory to see all our
pictures. They were saying things in Hebrew and I was telling them
repeatedly we do not speak Hebrew and that we can speak in English or Arabic to
them. I think they all understood English and at least two showed they
understood Arabic after persistence from us. I repeatedly asked in Arabic
and in English why we were picked on. One occupier said it is because he
liked the shape of my car! When I turned to a female soldier and asked
her the same question and adding “are we living in a fascist state,” she merely
shrugged her shoulders and said “he liked your car”. They did not smile
but I did, which seemed to irritate them. Ryan was asked if he smokes
anything and why is he here. Then they asked him “do you like
Palestinians,” to which he answered “I like all people!” After delaying
us for half an hour, they handed our ID cards to the international visitor and
let us go. For me, I was used to this. One of my students (also a
museum employee) is from an isolated village of Nahhalin which is frequently
closed off has also been frisked and checked many times in the past. His
village was closed in the last three days and he sleeps in Bethlehem
instead. My other student (also a museum employee) and the international
visitor had never experienced such harassment. We joked later that this
was a “good taste” of colonial occupation for them.

We discussed how these are really mild experiences compared to others.
For example, for the first five weeks of 2016, Israel demolished an average of
30 Palestinian structures weekly, displacing an average of 66 persons a week
(this is three times the weekly average than that in 2015). Palestinian
young people as young as 12 continue to be murdered by Israeli occupation
forces almost every other day. Israeli soldiers carry knives in their
backpacks to plant as "evidence" against many Palestinians they
murder. But there is growing Palestinian desperation. Israeli occupation
forces currently hold hundreds of Palestinian political prisoners without
charge ("administrative detentions".) At least one of those who
has been held for nearly three months is on hunger strike (taking only water
and salt.) He will likely die in the next couple of days if Israel does
not release him (Mohammad Al-Qeeq). The Israeli Knesset continues to add
racist laws to an already long list of racist laws (over 50) that discriminate
against non-Jewish "nominal citizens". This is not counting hundreds
of military orders that discriminate against us who are not considered
"nominal citizens" in our own country occupied by individuals with a
superiority-inferiority complex gathered from around he world under the banner
of Zionism.

Gaza's situation is far worse than the West Bank and Gaza prisoners get no
family visits and the Strip is besieged and starved of basic supplies.
Most of the tunnels that "smuggled" humanitarian supplies have been
destroyed. A slip of the tongue by Israeli Infrastructure Minister Yuval
Steinitz revealed that Egypt’s new policy of flooding the tunnels between the
Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula with seawater had come at Israel’s
request. The promise of rebuilding after Israel's last genocidal attack
on Gaza never materialized. We shudder to think that it is again time for
Israel to test new weapons on the Gaza "laboratory". Israel's largest
"export" is weapons-related technology, and Israeli leaders have to
"test" their weapons on the nearly two million captives in the open
air prison called Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile Fatah and later Hamas have taken the bait/infection of
"Oslo process" believing it is possible to have an authority under
occupation. Here in teh West Bank many good Fatah leaders admit to us
privately that they do not support the president whose erm expired years ago
and who firest anyone who criticizes him. Yet he takes unilateral decisions to
join the despots in "Saudi Arabia" and his speeches are frequently
dotted with statements like "we have our hands stretched for peace.. we stop
any armed resistance..we arrest activists... we believe only in peaceful
demonstrations...ask [beg] the US and International community to exercise its
responsibilities .. etc". Contrast this with what Ho Chi Minh once
said: “Viet Nam has the right to enjoy freedom and independence and in fact has
become a free and independent country. The entire Vietnamese people are
determined to mobilize all their physical and mental strength, to sacrifice
their lives and property in order to safeguard their freedom and independence.”
Or what Martin Luther King Jr said from Birmingham jail: "I have
been gravely disappointed with the white moderate...who is more devoted to
'order' than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of
tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly
says: 'I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your
methods of direct action'; who paternalistically believes he can set the
timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time
and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a 'more convenient season.'"
Or even what Yasser Arafat said during the siege in Beirut or when Israel was
pounding his last two rooms in his Ramallah headquarters "we will have freedom
or die as martyrs".

It is hard to cope with political leaders who do not seem to push strong enough but it is harder to deal state terrorism (which is far more devastating than individual terrorism). I (almost) retain sanity by staying busy (teaching
plus other volunteer jobs including directing the Palestine Museum of Natural
History, clinical laboratory work, writing, lecturing on Palestine, visitor guiding,
research, and more.) Birzeit University where I teach (more coach) a
Biodiversity course is a beautiful campus with great students and
faculty. Before class, and having been delayed at the flying checkpoint,
my two students had to rush to finish their work on “fruit
flies/Drosophila”. Spring is here and he gardens are blooming. The smell of freshly dug air mixes with the smell of almond blossoms. Good people and good food ameliorate life under occupation. It helps to have a
larger cause than one self. Like MLK Jr and Steven Biko and Malcolm X, we
are some times bewildered by the people around (including internationals and
Palestinians) who show signs of "mental occupation" or are simply
apathetic. But I would like to focus on those who have freed their minds and
are helping others do the same. There are literally millions of points of
light out there. We do not "win" over the darkness but it is
those lights that make life meaningful. My own students (at Bethlehem Bible College, Birziet, and Bethlehem University) are also lights. For all those points of light we
say thank you.

About Me

Professor Mazin Qumsiyeh teaches and does research at Bethlehem University (BU) and directs the BU's cytogenetics laboratory and the Palestine Museum of Natural History and Institute of Biodiversity and Sustainability in occupied Palestine. He also taught at Birzeit and Al-Quds Universities. He is author of "Sharing the Land of Canaan: Human rights and the Israeli/Palestinian Struggle", “Popular Resistance in Palestine: A history of Hope and Empowerment”, "Mammals of the Holy Land", and "The Bats of Egypt." He formerly served on the board of the Palestinian Center for Rapprochement Between People in Beit Sahour and Al-Rowwad Cultural and Theatre Society at Aida Refugee Camp.